The Moritz Grossmann Power Reserve: A Gold Standard In Steel

Tim Mosso has, more than once, said the he feels that Moritz Grossmann is possibly the most underrated brand in the world and it’s hard to look closely at this recent example of their watchmaking without having a sneaking suspicion he might have a point. Moritz Grossmann, based in Glashütte, Saxony, is not one of the small town’s older brands, having been founded by Christine Hutter in 2007 (which was a fraught time to start any business, much less a luxury watch brand) with a simple goal, which was and is to produce the finest quality watches possible in the style of traditional high-end German watchmaking. Production at MG is deliberately low, with only a couple of hundred watches produced per year, which gives this independent German brand the ability to lavish time and craft on its watches to a degree found in few other luxury watch brands. The watches are hand-finished, of course, and there is just as much care devoted to the dial side of the watch, and the hands and dial furniture, as there is given to the movement itself. The Moritz Grossmann Power reserve, with a salmon dial, was released as a limited edition in 2023 of fifty pieces and it’s as good a demonstration as I have ever seen of why Moritz Grossmann deserves to be better known and better appreciated.

The first impression you get from this 41mm x 11.65mm steel watch is of a pocket watch which has been adapted to the wrist, and I think that this is deliberate – the pocket watches by Glashütte watchmakers were generally not highly complicated, but they were exercises in the pursuit of precision timekeeping and their construction reflected that goal, with large, stable  2/3 or 3/4 plate construction, micrometric regulators, and, usually, all the generally accepted features of high grade pocket chronometers including adjustable mass balances (often freesprung, although very high grade watches exist both with and without regulators), overcoil balance springs, and large jewels in chatons set into the movement plates and bridges. It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Moritz Grossmann that this is not only a list of features found in high grade Glashütte pocket chronometers, but also features found in Moritz Grossmann’s wristwatches but before we turn to the movement, let’s look at the salmon dial side (which the beauty of the movement notwithstanding, is the one you’re going spend most of your time looking at).

Quality overall is extremely high but in a way so restrained that it’s easy to miss. Closer examination however shows just how much unsparing attention to detail has been lavished on the dial and hands. Dial printing is crisp, clear, instantly legible and immaculate if unobtrusive; the hands, however, are in closeup spectacular, with all the grace and slender elegance of a Brancusi. The hour and minute hands are constructed in two pieces, with a mirror polished central boss and deep cornflower heat-blued steel shafts, with elongated diamond tips embossed with an inner diamond outline that adds just enough detail to enrich the shapes, without seeming overdone or excessively baroque.

In pursuit of keeping the dial as classical and clear as possible, Moritz Grossmann opted for a linear power reserve, which gives you a clear visual indication of the amount of juice in the tank in a clean, instrumental fashion. While I’ve said, “instrumental” the technical clarity of this implementation of the power reserve complication is part of the unified aesthetics of the watch overall; the color matches the heat-blued hands and deep blue sans-serif Arabics and reflects the prevailing belief, from the era in which precision pocket watches were some of the most scientifically and mechanically sophisticated in instruments in the world, that there is no distinction to be made between physical beauty and technical excellence and that the former is a natural outcome of pursuit of the latter.

One of the many signs of attention to detail in the Moritz Grossmann Power Reserve is the small button underneath the crown. This is a clutch used when setting the hands. Pulling the button out disengages hand-winding and engages hand-setting at the crown, and also stops the seconds hand. Once the hands are set, pushing the button back down restarts the watch; the purpose of this system is to eliminate the backlash in the handsetting train found in many watches which can cause the minute hand to jump slightly when a crown is pushed in after setting the time.

All that said, the movement remains the star of the show although with the caveat that even with the finest movement, a lapse in quality in any aspect of the case or dial would let down the entire watch.

I’ve said that I think the pocket watch influence is very clear as a first impression and that impression is reinforced, and then some, by both the movement size and execution. The standard size for watch movements is generally between 26mm and 30mm in diameter; the Moritz Grossmann caliber 100.2 is a generous 36.4 mm x 5.4 mm and very satisfyingly  fills the interior of the case. The layout is traditional, with the click and crown wheels adjacent to the crown; both have beveled and polished gear teeth and the first wheel of the power reserve train has beveled and polished teeth as well, and sits under a straight grained steel cock set into the 2/3 plate.

The movement plates and bridges are untreated maillechort, or German silver (traditionally used in watchmaking prior to the development of modern rhodium plated brass, for its resistance to corrosion; German silver despite the name isn’t silver, but rather an alloy of nickel, zinc, and copper). Train jewels are set in gold chatons held in place with screws heat tempered to a deep purple – as are all the movement screws; a beautiful color found much less often than blue tempering. The use of chatons is a deliberate anachronism – modern watch jewels can be friction set in movement plates and bridges with a high degree of precision, which was the technical goal of chatons, but the anachronism is also an exercise in the presence of traditional watchmaking crafts as well.

All movement engraving is done by hand, and the balance cock and separate cock for the escape wheel are very elaborately hand-engraved with foliated scrollwork.

The technical features related to chronometry are both beautiful and useful (and really, shouldn’t a watch ideally be both?) The balance is technically not freesprung as there is a very long, needle fine regulator sweep which can be adjusted with a micrometric screw; although it’s true that theoretically a freesprung balance (that is, one with no regulator) is superior, it’s also true that in traditional watchmaking the regulator pins that sit on either side of the terminal balance spring curve can be used as part of the suite of techniques used to adjust a watch to positions, and I’ve seen them used on chronometer pocket watches, up to and including observatory tourbillons. Certainly the Moritz Grossmann Power Reserve  has one of the most beautiful regulators out there, and the oscillating system is full of beautiful touches like the small but gorgeously black polished blade spring holding the outer terminal stud of the Breguet overcoil balance spring in place.

One small but pet peeve of mine is the tendency for a writer to call something “simplistic” when they mean “simple.” “Simplistic” (and I feel like pointing this out is a losing battle) is actually an insult, it means, according to Merriam-Webster, “excessively simple : not complete or thorough enough: not treating or considering all possibilities or parts.”

A watch may be simple – the Moritz Grossmann Power Reserve is a simple watch with power reserve. I think it’s fair to say, however, that no one could possible accuse if of not being completely or thoroughly thought through and every part without exception has been treated and considered with tremendous attention to every detail of fit, finish, and function. There are flashier watches out there; there are watches that arguably constitute a more attractive investment; there are without question watches which are better conversation startes. But I think you will struggle to find, from any maker producing series-produced timepieces, a finer or better watch – especially if you want to see, in the metal, exactly what the standard for fineness of design and execution in watchmaking really should be.

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